"Rossianin"

[Robert Orr]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alina Israeli" <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2002 2:45 AM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] "Rossianin"

As a non-American maybe this one is a bit cheeky of me, but here goes:

Alina Israeli wrote:

(I am deliberately not
> using US as an example because everyone knows what an ethinc hodge-podge
> the US is, and there is no such thing as an "ethnic American").

Really?

A case could be made that "American" ethnicity predates most European,
including many Slavic, ethnicities, and certainly in the last century it
would have been more "meaningful"  than "German" or "Italian".

Ethnicity is often mostly self-identification, and is almost as stable as
mercury.  The number of people who write in "Canadian" on the long census
forms in the ethnicity section is increasing all the time, and I imagine the
same must be true of "American".

As an "ethnic" (at least back to the 17th century ought to count) Scot now
assmiliating to being "Canadian" and accustomed to trying to make some sense
of the terms "Scottish", "British" and "Canadian" .....

Robert Orr

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